User:TimSC

I have a physics degree from the University of Kent and a Computer vision PhD from University of Surrey. I'm a philosophy fan (mainly Hume and Nietzsche). I enjoy scuba diving and photography. My PhD research was on computer based recognition of visual, facial non-verbal communication signals. I am working in software engineering and technology.

"If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that says two plus two equals five, I wouldn’t question what I’m reading in the Bible. I would believe it—accept it as true and then do my best to work it out and to understand it."

"Had I thus come in vain into these forests and mountains? Then did my heart determine that I should seek another, the most pious of all those who believe not in God-, my heart determined that I should seek Zarathustra! [...] It is I, the ungodly Zarathustra, who saith: 'Who is ungodlier than I, that I may enjoy his teaching?'"

"One of the greatest challenges for modern readers of the Hebrew Bible [Old Testament] is to allow the text to mean what it says, when what is says flies in the face of doctrines that emerged centuries later from philosophical debates about the abstract category 'God.'"

Conversion and deconversion in Green Day's 21st century breakdown[edit]

Perhaps this has occurred to people before, but Green Day's album 21st century breakdown seems to be about conversion and subsequent de-conversion from Christianity. This story arc is mirrored in the parallel story of the relationship between the characters Christian and Gloria, whose names have obvious religious connotations.

The earlier songs address conversion to Christianity, particularly ¡Viva La Gloria! to East Jesus Nowhere. The song East Jesus Nowhere is about fundamentalist Christianity and describes their "moral war" against sin. Believers are compared to "the soldiers, Of the new world". Elsewhere, the album refers to "The choir infantry", "Say your prayers and light a fire we're going to start a war", "You're a stray for the salvation army".

From ¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl) to 21 Guns, the album addresses de-conversion from Christianity. The superficial meaning of 21 Guns is tiring of war and eventual surrender. The chorus begins One, 21 Guns, Lay down your arms, Give up the fight. "21 guns" refers to a 21 gun salute which in turn refers to the practice of disarming weapons as a sign of non-agression, since early cannons only held one round and were slow to reload. Given the previously established link between war and Christian belief, surrender is therefore abandonment of Christianity. The last line of the last verse is "Something inside this heart has died, you're in ruins" which refers to loss of belief in God. The final song See the light completes the transition to non-belief with the lyric "I crossed the river, Fell into the sea, Where the non-believers go beyond belief", but is left trying to make sense of life: "And I need to know what's worth the fight". Perhaps deliberately, this meaning is subtle enough to not directly antagonise most Christian listeners.